


Old Sins, Long Shadows, and Cake

by DestielsDestiny



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angry John, Assault is not okay, Big Brother Mycroft, Black Beard the Dog, Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Established Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade, Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilty John, Hurt Sherlock, Hurt/Comfort, John-centric, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Mycroft Being a Good Brother, Mycroft Feels, Mycroft IS the British Government, Mycroft-centric, POV John Watson, Paternal Lestrade, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Protective Greg, Victor Trevor matters, Violet and Siger Holmes' A+ Parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 16:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11627031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestielsDestiny/pseuds/DestielsDestiny
Summary: It was Rosie’s third birthday. The birds were singing, the cake was frosted, the balloons escaping into the sky. It was a perfect day at Musgrave Manor.In the after of everything that came before, John talks to Violet, a father to a mother, and some hard truths are shared.





	Old Sins, Long Shadows, and Cake

**Author's Note:**

> AN: I own nothing. Rough, will be edited soon.

It had been Sherlock’s idea to have the party there. John isn’t sure why. He hadn’t even been aware the brothers were supervising the restoration of their old family estate, spending countless hours moving every brick and burnt timber they could. 

According to Greg, it was like watching a long, continuous wake. And as much as it burns somewhere deep in John’s chest that he hadn’t even realized Sherlock had been disappearing for long periods, let alone where he went in those hours and sometimes even days. As much as it nearly choked him to realize how much things had truly changed, how much their roles had almost been reversed it seemed, with John only learning about the most important things in Sherlock’s present life when his flatmate hesitantly asked permission to finally include Rosie in one of these “family” outings. 

An invitation for John was conspicuously absent from that discussion, but John gave his permission anyone. He owed Sherlock that, that amount of trust. That and so much, much more. 

John had only seen Sherlock without a shirt once since Mary’s death, since everything that had followed it. The boot shaped scars would forever haunt him, and their specter seemed to forever colour every interaction that passed between them these days. 

It was a specter John hadn’t the first idea how to lift. So, permission he gave. 

And so, Rosie’s third birthday was the first time John had seen the restored Musgrave Manor in all its former glory. It was truly a magnificent house, even half burned and empty of life. Now, flower beds freshly redug, eaves restored and roof refinished, it was an majestic masterpiece of old history and architectural prowess. 

It looked like a home. The thought stuck in John’s throat as Rosie flung herself out of the land rover into Greg’s waiting arms, Sherlock clambering awkwardly out of the other door, Mycroft striding to meet them across the manicured lawn, three-piece suite firmly present and correct. The Holmes parents trailed after him, equal parts eager and melancholy. 

John tried to be as subtle as possibly in his scanning for another figure, but fortunately there was only one pair of gaunt cheekbones and dark, wavy curls present at this particular family gathering. 

John shuddered, and turned to help Molly with the cake. 

Mrs. Hudson chose that moment to roar in fashionably late, her ridiculously cool car somehow fitting right in with the country atmosphere. 

On the whole, it is a beautiful day, with a beautiful setting, wonderful company, and even better food. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. Rosie is laughing. 

Naturally, John chooses that day of all days do finally confront Violet Holmes. 

00

Sherlock had had the nightmare for the first time two weeks after John and Rosie moved into Baker street. Miraculously, his daughter had slept through the screaming, and crash of body hitting hardwood that had John springing up from his bed, gun in hand, the guttural whimpers that had him falling through Sherlock’s bedroom door half clothed, panting and worried. 

The thwack that accompanied Sherlock slamming John into the bedroom wall, gun firmly secured with a hand wrapped expertly around John’s wrist also did not wake up the sleepy toddler, for which John was eternally grateful. 

And where on earth had Sherlock learned how to do this on instinct, still clearly more than half asleep?

John didn’t quite have time to decide if the correct emotional response was fear or incredulity before Sherlock spat something at him that sounded distinctly Slovac in origin, although which language it was precisely eluded his admittedly slightly tone-deaf ear. 

Where on earth indeed. 

“Sherlock! It’s just me.” The hand tightened on his throat, Sherlock’s face twisting in a pained snarl. “It’s John!” 

That got a response, but not the one he was looking for. Because of all the things he would imagine might happen next, the British Government waltzing in Sherlock’s open bedroom door at four in the morning, complete with umbrella was distinctly not one of them. 

Although after all these years, perhaps it should have been the first thing on his next list. 

Mycroft seems completely unphased by the situation, as if this happens all the damn time. And maybe it does, for all John would know anymore. 

He used to know these things. And he knows as well as Mycroft does that parenthood has little to do with how that changed. 

“John, perhaps it would be best if you went and checked on Rosamunde now.” Mycroft always calls her that, never your daughter, never Miss Watson. He always uses her name, like he knows how important it is to all of them. 

John on the other hand...well, that’s the first time he’s been anything besides Dr. Watson since he nearly beat a serial killer to the punch at killing the man’s younger brother. 

John winces at the gaucheness of that unintended pun, carefully extricating himself from Sherlock’s crushing grip. This is admittedly aided by Mycroft’s gloved hands closing unerringly on his brother’s bare shoulders. John carefully doesn’t look at Sherlock’s chest, and the shadows of bruises he knows he will find there. Bruises shouldn’t scar. But there it is, even in this light. 

Still, looking will serve no one at this hour. Sherlock’s growling has morphed into something that might be whimpers as much as they might be sobs, his hands clutching at Mycroft’s umbrella like it was a teddy bear. 

John is fairly sure he knows more about the two men slumped against the far wall as any person living except the men themselves, and he still doesn’t get the significance of that damn umbrella. 

Pirates. John carefully skips his gaze over where he knows Mary will be standing, to his right, beside his heart. Where she always is. 

Swallowing tiredly, John slinks from the room, the Holmes brothers long since lost in their own little world. As it should be John is forced to admit more each day. As it should always be. 

John hadn’t known how damaged their relationship had been by the tragedy of their sister’s life, not until it had begun to heal, slowly, impossibly, somehow, in the shadows left behind by Sherrinford. 

John pauses in the doorway to Rosie’s room, gazing at his daughter’s still peacefully sleeping face, and marvels at the ability of the young to sleep through anything. 

And raising his eyes to the ceiling, all sounds from above the merest muffled echo now, he finds himself remembering the look on Mycroft’s face the first time he ever mentioned Sherlock Holmes. It seemed like a lifetime ago now, but John had never forgotten that look. 

Even if he had not understood the significance until relatively recently. 

Somethings really can only be understood through experience. Such as the look that crosses a parent’s face when they discuss their love for their child. 

00

By five in the morning, Mycroft appears to have settled Sherlock down. He also appears to be planning to spend the rest of the night up there with his brother. John, not able to hack the eerie silence of a flat he knows is occupied, doublechecks Rosie is asleep and then licks it down to the first floor. 

Predictably, Mrs. Hudson is in the kitchen, ringing her hands and making tea, her housecoat firmly tied, as if prepared to do battle. 

John accepts a cuppa gratefully, wishing he’d thought to grab his own dressing gown before coming down. “Mycroft’s with him.” That was fast becoming code for, “Everything is under control now, Mycroft is here,” which John would feel ridiculous about, if it wasn’t so very true. 

Mrs. Hudson sips her own tea philosophically, her hand covering John’s reassuringly. “Well, everything should be fine then dear. Now that he has his brother here.” She says that like that is a new development, Sherlock’s brother being here, and John knows she isn’t referring to the fact Mycroft now spends more nights up there with Sherlock than he does wherever he usually spends his nights. 

“I just don’t understand it. Sherlock used to loathe his brother.” John is less sure of that simple truth every time they have one of these conversations, but the marked change in the Holmes boys’ relationship since Sherrinford still stands regardless. 

Mrs. Hudson blows on her tea and sighs. “Come now John, who can hope to understand those Holmes boys.” John sips his own tea, fancying for a moment that the floor boards two stories above his head creak. Who indeed. 

00

Greg drags Mycroft over for a visit two days after John moves Rosie to Baker Street. Upon entry the normally laid-back police officer orders Mycroft to go play with the “kids”, indicating the stairs Sherlock has just vanished Rosie up, and herds John and Mrs. Hudson into the latter’s kitchen. 

He then proceeds to lay his service weapon on the table, the safety off, and level them both with a glare that made Mycroft’s Ice Man expression look like a golden retriever puppy. 

“I’m only going to say this once, so please pay attention. If either one of you ever lays so much as a finger on Sherlock or Mycroft again, I will shoot you myself. Are we clear?” 

Greg holds their gazes one after the other, then calmly starts pouring the tea, gun still prominently displayed. Watching a police officer pour Orange Pekoe into a teacup decorated with miniature primroses and then pass it to the old lady he just threatened with a loaded firearm is a surreal experience. John is fairly sure Mrs. Hudson could drop Greg from ten paces away with the gun he knows she keeps in the kitchen somewhere, but that is entirely beside the point. 

Mrs. Hudson sounds a bit tearful when she accepts the tea with a fervent, “Understood dear,” but John knows it is not from fear. Brown eyes swing to him then, and John swallows the guilt that threatens to drown him. In an ideal world, this would not be happening. In an ideal world, Greg would have arrested him long ago.

He picks up his own cup, sips it carefully, and holds Greg’s gaze steadily. 

A moment later he receives a single nod, the gun disappears, and the brown eyes go back to being warm again. They never mention it again. 

That visit ends with the three of them trooping upstairs to find Mycroft asleep on the sofa, Sherlock curled up against one side of him, Rosie snoring softly on the other. 

Watching them, John privately swears that if he ever hurts anyone of them again, Greg won’t have to shoot him, because John will do it himself long before then. 

00  
“Myc was supposed to be watching them.” Violet Holmes’ face is hard as marble in that moment, the brilliant sun reflecting of eyes far colder than John has ever seen on either of her apparently machine-like sons. There is no anger there, yet no pity either. There is simply…nothing. 

John shivers despite the heat. Harry had lost him a lot when they were children, but one of the few times it was not deliberate occurred around John’s sixth birthday, a quest for sweets and a badly timed lack of a note resulting in much yelling, tears, worry, and hugs. John barely remembers the feeling of being lost, but he’s never quite forgotten the look of devastated worry on Harry’s tear streaked face when John was found. Their parents yelled at his sister for what seemed like hours, and at the time John had almost enjoyed the fireworks. 

Harry had not been the easiest person to have as a big sister, even before she discovered whiskey. 

But as a father, John can now look back on that day and truly see, for the first time, the broken hearted thirteen-year-old being blamed for losing her little brother for exactly what she’d always been. A child. A child being blamed for something that ultimately, had been no more her fault than it had been John’s. Perhaps even less.  
Looking back now, the entire thing seems more cruel than constructive. And might go a little way to explaining the whiskey. 

John shakes his head subtly, even as he remembers that Harry is not over there with Sherlock and Greg playing tag with his daughter for reasons that have nothing to do with their childhoods, and everything to do with irresponsible babysitting that required the intervention of the British Government, and an awful lot of “that awwful brown stuff daddy.” 

His daughter’s laughter is all John needs to bring him back to the point of this conversation. “Hang on, how old was Mycroft when all this happened?” Violet’s eyes have lost none of their ice, despite the sinking sun casting long rays across both their faces. 

John shifts his body slightly away from the rest of the party guests. The Holmes Brothers are oddly psychic even across this much lawn. “I mean, he’s what, at most seven years older than Sherlock? So, he was what, fourteen when this all occurred?” John tries very, very hard to sound less incredulous than he feels, because honestly, how could he have been this stupid. 

_“She locked him in her cell.”_

_“Well, what goes around comes around I suppose.”_

John swallows thickly, his eyes seeking out the one person he knows will be wearing a suit to this gathering, thirty-five degree weather and all. A brief scan of the area is turning up nothing when Violet cuts through John’s slight guilt trip, because after all, this is still Mycroft they’re talking about, I mean come on- 

“He was twelve.” John’s head whips around so fast he actually hears the bones crackle. “Wha- Twelve? Are you serious?” His tone rises involuntarily, as the slight guilt blossoms into something colossal and suffocating because, yes, there, there is Mycroft, three piece suit, perfect tie, even that damned umbrella. Rosie, apparently bored of running Sherlock and Greg into each other over and over by dashing between their legs like the little imp her mother would have loved to see her become, finds that accoutrement as fascinating as she always has. 

Mycroft kneels down on the fresh cut grass without a thought, umbrella twirled with a distinct flourish before being offered to the toddler with open palms. They are too far away to hear what is being said, but John can mouth the, “It is my honour Miss Watson,” right along with its speaker. From this angle, it even almost looks like a sword. 

Something wet dashes down John’s cheek. He had never thought he would cry for the British Government. Bleed yes, and oh how he’d bled, but never cry. 

John lets his eyes prickle, makes no attempt to cough the choke out of his voice. “Let me get this straight,” He looks carefully ahead, eyes drinking in every splash of sunlight bouncing off Rosie’s blond ringlets as she swings the umbrella like a helicopter around the British Government’s immaculate suit covered shoulders. 

“You blamed a twelve-year-old boy for not watching other children well enough. That’s who you blamed for what happened, for that tragedy? Not Eurus’ illness, not bad luck, not Victor’s parents.” John bites back the “not yourselves” and blows right along in the face of Violet’s stony silence, her jaw working as she seems to gaze at thin air. 

“How can that possibly make sense, he was a child himself!” Violet’s head snaps towards him, her eyes blazing. She reminds John eerily of Sherlock high on cocaine, the day he attacked his own brother right in front of John, and they did nothing to stop him, because it was Mycroft. 

That guilt is rapidly tightening its grip on John’s airway, but he forces a breath and straightens his spine. Soldiers. 

Violet has apparently unfrozen her tongue. “He was supposed to be watching them. He’s a genius, always going on about how he was the smart one!” She manages to make those two words sound like the worst insult a mother could direct at her own son. “He was supposed to be looking after them!”

John sputters a little, drifting laughter causing him to pause long enough to check his tone. “He was a child!” “They were all children” doesn’t get voiced, but it’s too late. Apparently the Holmes brothers also have hearing like a bat, if Sherlock’s abrupt head turn is, like a dog scenting a quarry, is anything to go by. 

John clenches his jaw, carefully not looking in Mycroft’s direction, Rosie’s reassuring giggles still reaching his ears. He hisses out his continued rebuttal. “How is it logical to have blamed Mycroft for any of what happened-“ John cuts himself off at the look on Violet’s face. “No, not blamed. Blame. You still do, don’t you. You blame him for everything.” John doubts he’s ever sounded more incredulous. Or seemed more dense because honestly, how is he only just getting this. 

“You blame Mycroft for what happened to Eurus. To Sherlock.” John feels his voice shift from disbelieving wonder to croaked incredulity on his last. “To Victor.” John will never forget standing in a well with the bones of a child barely older than his own. It is something that will haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life, and rightly so. 

Violet has gone back to silent contemplation of the nearby bees, but John is on full steam now, voice a carefully toned hiss. “You blamed a twelve-year-old for the destruction of your family, the destruction of the Trevor family. Why? How could you possibly believe that any of this was his fault?” 

That apparently was the final straw for the Holmes matriarch. “Oh come on, you’ve met Myc! Always has to control everything, always thinks he knows best, omniscient, always playing god! Did you think that was a recent development? He’s always been like that, even before his siblings were born. When he was five, he informed his father and I that the way we ran the house was terribly inefficient and handed us a detailed chart of how we should make improvements!"

 

Violet’s tongue lashes the next statement into the summer air with all the sting of the accusation it is. “In any case, why the sudden indignation Dr. Watson? As far as I can recall, you don’t even like Mycroft. What is all this in aid of.” 

John clenches his jaw as he works through the many possible responses to that, from the quick and angry, “Your oldest son”, to the slightly more thought out but thoroughly overused, “Because he was just a child.” 

He grinds his teeth on the response he would once have given. “Well, it’s rather hard to like someone who kidnaps you on first acquaintance.” The response that is soured by the memory of a man who negotiates the solutions to wars on a daily basis being too shaken and down right scared to solve the macabre puzzles of his little sister, a man who then proceeded to straighten his jacket, look his baby brother in the face, and forgive him for shooting him because Rosie needed a father and Sherlock couldn’t live without John. 

Across the field, Mycroft has plucked John’s daughter out of yet another spin, umbrella and all, and is perching her small feet on his shoulders as he strides towards the sweaty pile of detectives rolling across the ground like puppies. Again John mouths with him, “Really gentleman, is this anyway to behave in the presence of a lady.” 

John squares his shoulders yet again, follows Violet’s gaze from the sight before them back to the iciness that has never truly left her eyes. “You’re right, I don’t like Mycroft. I never have.” More childish shrieks of laughter. John lets himself begin to smile, however grim it probably comes out. “But I also think it’s high time I changed that, don’t you?” 

John doesn’t wait for a reply, his steps measured, his arms swinging carefully. He only pauses once, bees buzzing around his knees, Violet a frozen presence in their midst. Glancing over his shoulder, John allows himself a moment of pity for this woman, this sad and lonely woman who lost her daughter as surely as John lost his wife, and doesn’t even have the comfort of being able to truly grieve for her. Who can never bring her home. 

“Mycroft never forgave himself for losing them you know.” It is a cold comfort as much as it is a harsh reality, and the words taste like ash in his mouth. For just a moment, the ice in Violet’s eyes seems to crack. “I know.” John doesn’t try to find words. He knows none will ever suffice. 

Harry lost him for two hours. John can’t imagine losing someone for thirty years. And he is in no position to judge another person’s handling of grief. 

But as he approaches the group of slightly grass stained adventurers, umbrella the only sword in sight, his arms stretching out to accept his daughter’s wriggling, grinning form, John can’t quite shake another memory from his head. 

_“And you know how it used to upset Mummy.”_

_“It wasn’t me who upset her Mycroft!”_

John perches Rosie on his hip, his daughter’s small fingers waving Mycroft’s umbrella at her father’s head. “Look daddy, Unca Mycy gave me a sword!” John carefully doesn’t think about how literal that statement might be, his eyes sliding up to meet Mycroft’s. 

Violet’s eldest son may have her eyes, but somehow, John has never noticed before how warm they actually are. How uncertain. How raw. How deep. 

“Everything alright John?” It is a question that doubtless has many layers, bat Holmes hearing, sorta telepathy and all. John slides his eyes from Sherlock’s slight grin and reddened cheeks, to Greg’s mussed, grassy hair, to the wet patches on Mycroft’s trousers, to Rosie’s curls and back. 

He clears his throat slightly, his voice steady and sure in its reply. “Yeah Myc, I think it is.” 

Mycroft’s face at the nickname is positively heartbreaking, Greg’s breath catching in time with Sherlock’s and for a moment, John is unsure if he miscalculated. 

And then, for the first time since he met the man in an abandoned warehouse nine years earlier, John Watson sees Mycroft Holmes truly smile. 

Rosie chooses that moment to whack the rather sturdy umbrella into John’s chin. He meets Sherlock’s grin with one of his own, the word forming of its own accord, “Pirates?” 

Sherlock comes flush with his big brother’s shoulder, Greg trailing slightly behind. They exchange head turns briefly before coming back with a resounding chorus, “Pirates!” 

Somewhere, over Rosie’s cheers, John could almost swear he hears a dog barking in agreement. 

00  
The sun was beginning to slip behind the high trees ringing the edges of the Musgrave Estate, majestic and untouched. Looking at that view, the orange of the sun burnishing the copper edges of the leaves a fiery colour, it was easy to forget the tragedies that dogged this place, and the people who had once lived here. 

John’s foot caught on an uneven root, wrenching his gaze from the setting sun and redirecting it to where his hand had just fumbled the plate he was carrying. “Blast.” Purple frosting oozed along the tops of his fingers. John grimaced. Why had he let Rosie talk Molly into that particular colour. 

“I trust everything is quite alright over there Doctor Watson?” John attempted to shake his fingers free of cake without destroying the remains of the slice, or his jumper, in the undertaking, wondering somewhat waspishly how Mycroft Holmes had managed to spend most of the day playing outside, in the middle of the countryside, with John’s three year old juice and ink terrorist of a daughter, and yet somehow still emerge impeccably turned out, leaning against a bit of crumbling stone fence in a purple fluted waistcoat that cost heaven knows how much, looking for all the world like he was part of a photoshoot for the latest in Men’s Country Fashion. 

John glanced down at his own ratty orange jumper, lamenting the wisdom of letting one’s three-year-old pick one’s clothing choices because, “I’m the birthday princess Daddy! Lockie said so!”

They had tried adding uncle to that. Or rather John had tried adding uncle to it, on numerous occasions. Neither Sherlock nor his daughter was having any of it. John sometimes wonders if they know something he doesn’t. Or rather, something he’s too dense to figure out yet. Watching his daughter with the Holmes boys has rather swayed John’s views on the whole nature vs nurture thing firmly into the latter camp. 

John whipped futilely at the smears of purple on his front, then tromped closer to Mycroft and his stone perch. “Mycroft, we’re in the middle of nowhere, you’re sitting on a moss-covered wall in Armani and I’m wearing more icing that sweater. You really don’t have to still sound like you’re about to address the leader of a small country!” 

Mycroft remained unfazed and cool as ice, damn him. Head tilted in clear condescension, the sun streaming all around him like a bizarre, blazing halo, he looked for all the world like a king addressing the lowest of underlings. 

“Really John, the more impeccable standards of dress and deportment are reserved for, at the very least, medium sized countries.” John felt he could be forgiven for gaping uncomprehendingly in the face of that bald-faced but blankly delivered jest. Particularly when it was followed up by a distainful, dripping, acerbic retort of, “And it’s Gucci actually.” 

Why, oh why did his daughter and Greg both love this man so much.

At a loss for anything else to do, his feet having arrived as close to the British Government and his wall as he had any desire to get, John proffered the slightly mangled slice of cake. 

“I brought you some cake.” Mycroft did blink then, slowly, once, then twice. He looked like a lizard, eons of worldly wisdom failing to elucidate the meaning behind such a mundane gesture. 

“Very thoughtful of you Dr. Watson, but as my brother is so found of remind me, I am no longer a child. I do not require…coddling.” John had a distinct feeling they were no longer talking about just the cake. 

Earlier camaraderie apparently forgotten and unforgiven in the absence of the younger members of their family, John shift uncomfortably, the cake a conspicuous rejection held awkwardly between them. 

John cleared this throat. “Listen, Myc-,” A raised eyebrow hastened his winced correction, “-croft, I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye on, well, anything quite frankly. But considering, well…” John gestured ineffectually behind him, encompassing the house in the background, the people no doubt scattered in varying states of tired exuberance as the party wound down. All the people they both cared about, so very, very much. 

Mycroft remained as cool as ice, and double damn him, for making John ever even think of agreeing with Jim blood Moriarty. John shuddered, squared his shoulders, and soldiered on. He needed to say this.

“I know I’ve said some things in the past, done some things, of which I’m less than proud.” Mycroft still offered him nothing in return, and John felt the grip on his temper begin to slip. Somehow, the Holmes’ always seemed to have that effect on him. 

“Damnit Mycroft, I’m trying to apologize here!” That earned him an abrupt shift to standing, the British Government turning with an easy grace, angling himself just enough to obscure his expression. The tell in that gesture itself made John feel oddly touched in its honest vulnerability. 

“For which part precisely Dr. Watson? Physically assaulting my desperately ill younger brother, or implying that the incarceration and crimes of my younger sister are something for which I need to experience comeuppance?” John’s mouth dropped open, because blunt didn’t quite cover that one. 

Nor was icy a remotely adequate adjective to describe the expression in Mycroft’s eyes when he turned away from the sun once more. A chill swept up John’s spine, his mouth going dry. 

This wasn’t Eurus’ older brother, wasn’t the broken and uncertain boy he’d caught glimpses of at Sherrinford. No, this was the British Government himself, the man who could bring down nations with the merest flick of his eyebrows. This was Sherlock’s older brother. This was Mycroft Holmes, not Myc, not Mycy, not a boy who should have been watching his younger siblings. 

This was a man who had spent a lifetime blaming himself for not watching his younger siblings close enough. This was what that boy had shaped himself into, as a direct consequence of that failure. 

For a single, eternal moment, it stole John’s breath away, the power of that gaze. The control. The depth of feeling. The intelligence. The sanity. 

John squared his shoulders once more, his hands fisting at his sides, cake and paper plate squelching together indiscriminately. He was a soldier, yes. But he was also a doctor. A damn good one. Even if he forgot that sometimes, with devastating consequences. 

“No. I’m not apologizing for either of those things. And not just because there is no apologizing for the unforgivable.” The latter John was positive Greg would never forgive him for, at any rate. The former…well, pretty much everyone up to and including John himself couldn’t forgive that one. Mary certainly didn’t. Wouldn’t. Couldn’t. 

John’s face must have changed somehow, because Mycroft abruptly shifted slightly closer, his eyes sliding from British Government to Older Brother levels of ice. John felt like he could breathe slightly easier. 

“I’m apologizing because I shouldn’t have said those things to your mother.” Surprise warred with blankness for just a moment on Mycroft’s face, and John tamped down on the ungentlemanly wave of glee that rose in his throat at the sight. “Not because it wasn’t any of my business, because frankly at this point the fact we are permanent parts of each other’s lives is a foregone conclusion, unless we want to break several people’s hearts.” Mycroft’s nod was resigned, and barely there, but it was there. 

“And we both know that’s never going to happen, not on either of our watches.” John’s voice was rough, quiet. 

“I’m apologizing because, like it or not, we’re family now. And family shouldn’t hide things from each other. Shouldn’t lie to one another.” John let the censure leak into his voice, and received a grimace in return. Seen and acknowledged. Moving right along. 

“But above all, I’m apologizing because I was wrong. You weren’t a child. Not even back then. Maybe not ever.” Mycroft’s wall of ice cracked there, yawning wide open with a painful, vulnerable intensity that almost made John averted his eyes. Almost. 

Instead, he thrust the bent plate at Mycroft’s midsection, carefully avoiding examining it to see how much of its original composition was actually still discernable. He held Mycroft’s gaze, and soldiered right on till the end. “You weren’t a child. But that doesn’t mean you didn’t deserve the chance to be one. Myc.” The last was said with a raised chin, a firm, implacable tone matching the doctor’s expression. 

And your mother needed to hear that. Someone needed to tell her that. He doesn’t say that, barely dares to even think it. For a moment, the clearing is so quiet their breathing is faintly audible. Far off, a bird calls a gusty farewell to the last of the setting sun’s rays. 

And then, slowly, so very slowly, Mycroft Holmes reaches out to John Watson, and accepts the slice of cake. Well, John amends ruefully, cake crumbs and crumpled paper plate stained with the remains of icing, but it was the thought that counts right?

Mycroft broke the staring match first, looking down, a stiff and formal, “Thank you Doctor Watson,” being uttered in the tone he probably reserves for really large countries. Privately John thinks the man deserves an Oscar for how elegantly he supresses a grimace at the suspicious purple stain oozing from plate remains to impeccable Gucci waistcoat buttons. But tone or not, grimace or not, he’s going to count this one as a win-

“Mycy! I managed to steal a second slice of cake from Mrs. Hudson, and since it is rather obvious you have no plans to stick to that diet this time around, I thought you might like-“ 

Sherlock does a fairly passable impression of startlingly out of a bound into a surprised stop, feet stumbling against each other, a heaping slice of purple and pink icing balanced elegantly on fine bone china. There are days when John can’t fathom how these two men are related to each other. Then there are days like today. 

Between the silence earlier and Sherlock’s extra emphasis on that last stumble while not dropping the cake, Mycroft’s Oscar winning performance is already secure in John’s mind, but naturally enough the man follows it up with a prim, “Really Sherlock-“

Only for them all to turn yet again as a second pair of footsteps approaches from the opposite direction. Greg is flushed, the beginnings of a truly atrocious sunburn blossoming across his cheeks and over his nose. His hair is longer than it used to be, flopping in his face. Rosie is perched eagerly on his shoulders, tired eyes gleaming in the last of the late summer sun, small hands leaving yet more purple stains across Greg’s forehead. 

One hand securing the toddler wrapped around his head, the other balancing the entire serving tray, complete with half a cake, forks, and a wickedly sharp looking knife, Greg Lestrade looks nothing like the new head of the Met. 

The sheepish grin on his face makes him look very young, and startlingly handsome. Not that he had a patch on Sherlock mind, and woah, where had that come from?  
John yanked his head back into the game as Greg held the cake aloft. “Me and the little monster here thought we might sneak Uncle Myc some leftovers, but I guess we were beaten to it.” Greg looks resigned to the fact that this happens a lot in his life. To be fair, this is unsurprising considering he knows two Holmes, two Watsons, and a Hudson. Not to mention a Hooper. 

Mycroft meanwhile throws out an almost absent, “That was most thoughtful Gregory, Rosamunde.” And that was his Older Brother tone, mixed with something John had never heard before. Well, not since Sherrinford. 

Watching Mycroft glance from the crumpled mess in his hands, to the elegant offering in Sherlock’s, to the purloined banquet in Greg’s, Rosie’s happy voice declaring, “We brought you cake Uncle Myc!” with all the innocence of the child she still is, John feels something warm and heavy settle in his chest. 

Because that look right there? That’s the reason these people scattered about John in this little clearing in the middle of nowhere love this man so much. That’s the reason that one day, maybe not today and certainly not tomorrow, but one day, John may just learn to love this man too. 

Because that look right there? That’s what love looks like. 

00

John asks Mycroft Holmes for his little brother’s hand in marriage on Rosie’s seventh birthday, Musgrave framed against the skyline behind their heads. They are in that same clearing, a stone bench lovingly placed where the wall used to be. It is high summer, Rosie is playing with her Irish Setter pup by the graveyard, Sherlock and Greg dodging in an out of the stones, tagging each other too many times for what game they are playing exactly to be discernable from this distance. 

Mycroft stares at John just long enough to make him distinctly uncomfortable, twirls his umbrella menacingly through the air-John tries very hard not to think about the sword inside, that particular morsel of Understanding-the-Holmes-Boys gained through an improbable scenario involving Rosie, the newly christened Black Beard, and Mrs. Hudson’s best china teapot-and levels John with an unreadable expression. 

“It certainly took you long enough Dr. Watson.” John’s mouth is still hanging on the ground when Mycroft reaches into his suit pockets and removes no less than a dozen ring boxes of varying sizes and shapes. “This is a selection of suitable rings I took the liberty of procuring for just this occasion.” He presents them to John like a waiter offering a selection of fine cuisine for his perusal. “You may of course choose which ever one you wish, although Sherlock has always been partial to sapphires.”

John blinks at Mycroft and his collection of no doubt priceless, probably actually once part of a royal collection, selection of jewellery, glances at Sherlock’s red face, half obscured by Greg’s arms wrapped around his midsection, their laughter echoing around Musgrave like peals of bells. 

He’s caught between tipping an imaginary hat to Mycroft’s omnipotence at correctly predicting that John was planning to propose this year-really Dr. Watson. I never guess-, wondering if the man has simply been stuffing his pockets with ring boxes every time they’ve all been gathered together on the off chance this might happen, and laughing at the sheer absurdity of his life. 

He’s saved from this decision making process by his hellion of a daughter flinging herself at the backs of his knees, Black Beard gamely joining the fray with an excited woof. 

Rosie, being Rosie, takes one look at Mycroft and his imitation of a jewellery display, one look at her father’s face, and shouts loud enough to set a family of rooks flapping into the air in distress, “Papa, Daddy’s finally going to propose to you!” 

John resigns himself to his fate with a huff, snags the sapphire ring box from Mycroft’s left hand-correctly predicting the box colours correspond to the types of gemstones they each contain-, and strides towards Sherlock with a purposeful march. 

He almost blows his knee out attempting to kneel down gracefully, Sherlock rolls his eyes at Mycroft when the ring comes into view, and Greg laughs at the awkwardness that having a puppy and a kid squirming in their arms turns their kiss into, but somehow, the yes he receives tastes sweeter than he could ever have imagined. 

Mycroft naturally chooses the birthday/celebratory supper on the lawn afterwards to announce he and Greg have recently gotten engaged. He says it in a characteristically smug tone, staring straight at Sherlock and the ring around his neck with a cat-who-got-to-the-cream-first expression that only older siblings seem able to ever quite perfect. “As a matter a fact, Gregory and I have been engaged for some months now.” 

John could have thrown his cucumber sandwich at him, if he wasn’t so busy glaring at Violet and her iceberg like expression in the face of Mycroft’s announcement. Still, good to know where Mycroft learned how to look so cold he supposed. 

Greg is attempting to look less than completely stunned by Sherlock’s awkward but distinctly sincere congratulatory side-hug. Rosie is succeeding in slipping Black Beard her cucumbers. 

As such, only John really notices Violet moving towards Mycroft until his other is before him, a plate of cake clutched almost painfully in her hands. She proffers it tentatively, just as John had once thrust a similar olive branch towards the same recipient, in this very clearing. 

Mycroft seems as stunned as John feels, watching mother and son, watching Mycroft reach out a shaking hang, accept the peace offering. Violet’s hand hesitates around her son’s head, wanting to touch, before dropping to her side once again, empty and silent. 

John glances towards Sherlock, who has finished extricating himself from Greg’s returned embrace and his watching his brother with a pensive, almost broken expression. 

He crosses the clearing, bare feet brushing across the soft moss. Settling at Mycroft’s feet, Sherlock leans his head back against the stone seat and gazes up at the swirling white clouds. They look like something is missing, time or people or memory. Something. Yet somehow, impossible, John thinks they look happy. 

They all tactfully pretend not to be able to hear when Sherlock whispers into the wind, “Victor loved this place.” Mycroft follows his brother’s gaze upwards, his reply almost lost to the same gust of warm summer air. “So did Eurus.” 

And as John watches, Mycroft slowly brings a forkful of cake to his lips, and takes the first bite. 

Beside him, Sherlock throws his head further back, grins up at the sky, and laughs. 

John Watson will never understand the Holmes boys. Certainly not better than they understand each other. But that’s okay. Because really, he wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
